Measurement of the Growth of Perturbations on Blast Waves in a Mixed Gas

Abstract

We have performed a series of experiments examining the properties of high Mach number blast waves. Experiments were conducted on the Z-Beamlet laser at Sandia National Laboratories. We created blast waves in the laboratory by using ∼1000 J laser pulses to illuminate millimeter scale solid targets immersed in gas. Our experiments studied the validity of theories forwarded by Ryu and Vishniac (1987, 1991) and Vishniac (1983) to explain the dynamics of perturbations on astrophysical blast waves. These experiments consisted of a systematic scan of the decay rates of perturbations of known primary mode number induced on the surface of blast waves by means of a regularly spaced wire array. The amplitude of the induced perturbations relative to the radius of the blast wave was tracked and fit to a power law in time. Measurements were taken for a number of different mode numbers in a mixed gas consisting of 7.5 Torr xenon and 2.5 Torr nitrogen and the results are compared to theoretical predictions. It is found that two of the three mode numbers imply one polytropic index while the third case, which is the most complicated for several reasons, implies a higher polytropic index.